Description of the pusillanimity and weakness of the Súfí who has been brought up in ease and has never struggled with himself or experienced the pain and searing anguish of (Divine) love, and has been deluded by the homage and hand-kissing of the vulgar and their gazing on him with veneration and pointing at him with their fingers and saying, “He is the (most famous) Súfí in the world to-day”; and has been made sick by vain imagination, like the teacher who was told by the children that he was ill. In the conceit of being a (spiritual) warrior and regarded as a hero in this (spiritual) Way, he goes on campaign with the soldiers engaged in the war against the infidels. “I will show my valour outwardly too,” says he; “I am unparalleled in the Greater Warfare: what difficulty, forsooth, should the Lesser Warfare present to me?” He has beheld the phantasm of a lion and performed (imaginary) feats of bravery and become intoxicated with this bravery and has set out for the jungle to seek the lion. (But) the lion says with mute eloquence, “Nay, ye will see! and again, nay, ye will see!”

رفت یک صوفی به لشکر در غزا ** ناگهان آمد قطاریق و وغا

A Súfí went with the army to fight the infidels: suddenly came the clangours and din of war.

ماند صوفی با بنه و خیمه و ضعاف ** فارسان راندند تا صف مصاف

The Súfí stayed behind with the baggage-train and tents and invalids, (while) the horsemen rode into the line of battle.

مثقلان خاک بر جا ماندند ** سابقون السابقون در راندند

The earth-bound heavies remained in their place; the foremost in the march, the foremost in the march, rode on.